EDITION OF TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2017 (PetPowellPress)Heroes. As Harvey has demonstrated, towns are full of ‘em. “Natural disaster” brings out the heroic behavior. But so does “natural tendency” -- that’s in people who try to make things better because it’s the right thing to do. Animal advocates and rescuers are loaded with “natural tendency.” Since Harvey made landfall, we’ve had opportunities to see heroes saving people and animals. Cameras were covering that tragedy. Now and then, when the weather isn’t threatening, cameras will catch heroes at work. For this edition, we’re focusing on animal rescuers. No news crew was around to cover this story.There was no flood. And this is a Dallas dog in distress long before Harvey was a suggestion on a digital weather map of the Gulf of Mexico. We’ve mentioned this effort before -- Sandra Luhring, manager of the Humane Society of Dallas County’s Dog & Kitty City, trying to save a hungry dog she was calling “Buddy” (that's him 3 weeks ago in the upper photo and, upper left, Saturday!) just because the name worked with him. When she first saw him, months ago, he was nobody’s buddy. He was a starving dog hanging around an out-of- business store. Sandra summarized Saturday’s adventure this way: “Pat Rodriguez and I went to trap the dog I have been feeding for past few months. We waited and waited. He wouldn't go into the trap. We started talking trying to figure out what to do next. I said let me try a leash. He went right into the car. Mission accomplished.”That’s the short version. Veteran rescuer Pat posted a longer version of this rescue on the Facebook page of The Street Dog Project.“Project: Buddy, street dog living in South Dallas abandoned liquor store. Status: Not a street dog anymore!!!” she wrote. Then she told the background, how Sandra, on her way to work at the HSDC’s Dog and Kitty City Shelter near Love Field, had to take a different route because of road construction. One morning, she “noticed by accident, out of the corner of her eye, this dog, who she named Buddy. She stopped at the closest donut store and bought something savory for the dog, and promised him she’d be back. So, Sandra kept going back, fighting off the fleas, which were everywhere, relentlessly biting Buddy and her, making friends with Buddy. While she could pet him, he would back away if she did anything ‘funny,’ so we agreed use a humane trap to bring him to safety.“We met this [Saturday] morning, and Buddy was already waiting for Sandra! We set up the trap and baited it, and watched from afar. “Buddy would go to the trap and around it, and ate the food at the very entrance to the trap, but no more.” They waited a half-hour, but when his behavior didn’t change, they changed approaches. Pat says, “We though ‘Why not see what happens now if we put a leash on him?’ Since Sandra had already established friendship with the dog, and the car was right there, with the door open ... Can you imagine our happiness when Buddy just jumped right into the car?!” They both “burst out laughing and Sandra got in the car ASAP.” They drove Buddy to Dog ‘n’ Kitty City and gave him a “much-needed bath.”As it turns out, “Buddy is quite friendly and we are glad he is now finally in a safe place.” And Pat wrote on The Street Dog Project page, “Sandra said they will give him a new name, check him for a microchip today, and later test him for heartworms. You can help with Buddy’s vetting costs by donating to The Humane Society of Dallas County. Thank you HSDC and Good Samaritan Sandra, for caring about Buddy’s plight, and for helping him!”You see photos of Buddy at various stages before, during and after rescue. There’s even a video HERE. See adoptables at dognkittycity.org or on Facebook HERE. Follow The Street Dog Project HERE. [LARRY ASIDE: I saved this big photo until last because it speaks volumes about rescue. Anybody who has ever picked up a stray dog or cat will smile at what I’m about to point out. Some of you have already spotted it. Yep, we don’t have a car at our house without this accessory, either. You rescue a dog and sometimes a cat and magically dog and cat hair will become part of the upholstery! Now and then, you’ll get into your car and get a warm feeling of “success” when you can ID the dog hair that’s quietly transferring from a car seat to the pants, shirt or sweater you’re wearing at the time. Bless the hairy carseats of Dallas and all the critters that make ‘em hairy and the heroes that need an auto detailing coupon on a weekly basis.]NINJA MISSING IN HOUSTON The line on the email read “Plea from a rescue boat: Ninja is missing (Harvey: Memorial+Eldridge area).” The appeal came from our Houston tipster Alexandra Kelsey who has been living through this Harvey aftermath and continuing to monitor things. She wrote, “When you get evacuated by boat, you don't get to take everything you want with you. “Andrew was one of those flooded by the release of water at the Barker reservoir. When he was able to go back in a boat, he hoped to get his dog, Ninja, but someone had broken a window in his apartment and his dog is missing.“Ninja is chipped. Andrew and Leslie [from rescuebank] are connected by text. If you know anything helpful, contact Leslie and she will reach out to Andrew. ... I hope everyone reading this is safe, and I know all of us would be bereft at the loss of a pet during this harrowing time.” If you know the whereabouts of Ninja, this black and tan Chihuahua with the white chest, email leslie@rescuebank.org.[LARRY ASIDE: I’m posting this in Dallas, but the reality of the animal world is you never know who is reading and where they are when they’re reading it. Ninja may be (our prayer!) safe with someone in the neighborhood or (our other prayer) safe with rescuers in another city. Reunite the dog with the people, that’s the goal.]ONE MORE HOUSTON NOTE:THIS IS A FACE WITH CHARACTEROur tip on this story may have originated in Houston, but we got it from the Shelter Angel of Denton, Amy Poskey, usually monitoring the animals in need in the university town north of Dallas. This boy is in a shelter in the Harvey Zone. His subject line reads: “SOS!!! SENIOR ALERT!! HOUSTON, TX HARRIS AC: SHEPHERD/LABBIE MIX 10 YRS OLD - A491627.” He’s been at the shelter since Friday. As Amy wrote, “Look at that SWEET, HANDSOME gray face and pleading eyes!!! Seniors are such wonderful companions!!!.”He was found in Spring, “timid and quiet” and “roaming loose in someone’s yard,” the original appeal said. The contact point is the Harris County Animal Control Shelter at 281-999-3191. The shelter is at 612 Canino Road in Houston. MEANWHILE IN IRVINGThis appeal is bouncing around to the usual folks in an attempt to save this mamma dog. The original note, from Nandina Sharma to A Different Breed Rescue, carried the subject line “Mamma dog and 6 puppies...likely to be EUTHANIZED!” The story is the family had been “living under a trailer. There’s no one to take care of them. the lady who was taking care of them is mentally ill and is being evicted fro the trailer. the new owner has called in animal control.” Gayla Geist, a “volunteer foster mom” with CLASP (Cowtown Loves Animal Shelter Pets) reported over the weekend that the dogs were in the Irving shelter and that Operation Kindness may be working on saving the mom and pups. But that is where the situation is settling on Labor Day. Maybe the holiday will save the animals. Maybe not. To offer to help this Mamma and her family or any animals in the care of CLASP, email Gayla at ggwiths2r@gmail.com.CONTEMPLATION We’re dedicating this contemplation to the City of Dallas, to Dallas Animal Services, to the animals now filling the shelter and to the residents who were elated when there were only a handful of dogs left at the Big Shelter in Big D at the end of Clear The Shelter Day on August 19. Here we have a DAS cat with an odd name -- first one I've ever seen named "Trufflebutter." And an Earhound named Charlotte who clearly is using her ears and wearing her dish to pick up space signals through the Stephen Hawking Breakthrough Listen program that surveys “noise” from across the universe. You may recall how elated DAS was when the workers were able to stand in the open kennels and nobody would run out. Just a few dogs and cats were leftover.See these two illustrations clipped from the DAS Facebook page and when you’ve finished them in just a few seconds, take a look at the latest report card on the DAS website. You’ll ask yourself, “Does it really take just about two weeks to load the Dallas shelter again with unwanted animals? What kind of people live in this town? Weren’t any of these animals loved? Or were they dumped so people could leave town for Labor Day?